Apr 28, 2015

An Introduction To The Gun Debate - With Examples Drawn From Kansas, CNN, Articles & The Daily Show

As shown in a previous post, a gun is like a car in many ways. An off car is like an unloaded gun. A piece of metal. An on car is like a loaded gun. A touch on the pedal and someone standing in front or behind the car could die almost instantly. A car careening off the road on to a sidewalk (which tend to be right next to the cars hurtling away down the roads) can kill and maim on contact. It's like being hit by a racing piano. A gun can go off if the trigger is pressed. If the gun is pointed at someone it can kill on contact.

What is the difference between the on car and the loaded gun? Lets see. There is size. One is designed to kill while the other is designed to transport. The car driver has allot more experience & practice driving safely (including days of personal training by an instructor either a bought one or a parent or sibling), while the gun owner, well, the trend is to just giving a killing machine to people without any instruction at all. It's like giving a kid a car and a license and saying "OK. Now drive. You'll pick it up as you go".Kansas is the lab of what reversing our Constitutional rights would look like. The following going into ways Kansas is reducing it's citizen competency in gun knowledge while calling it freedom and restricting how other citizens use their money and, apparently, calling that freedom as well;GOPsters Paradise - Governor Sam Brownback enforces harsh welfare regulations in Kansas despite the state's own reliance on federal assistance. (8:19)

So while I understand many of the arguments on the right comparing say a knife to a gun and saying that a killing implement is not what kills or that a car can be just as dangerous as a gun... with the knife, well, it's not designed to be a killing machine and it's not a machine. No training to little training is required in how to use a knife. It's not like a car or a gun... at least, logic would suggest such a train of thought. Kansas seems to be particularly "out there" when it comes to citizen safety (above) and basic arithmetic as their recent experiment in "economics" has shown;

No Revenue + Expenditure = A Bankrupt State ... the example of Kansas;

All this said, there is still the idea of the gun being a killing machine while a car, while just as deadly, is for transport that can misused but that's not what it was designed for. Even a knife, if used to kill, is often just from the kitchen or something used for hunting or camping.

I'm going to put this as simply as I can. The gun is the epitome of our civilization. There are no historical records we have (any records we think about or use are a part of our "historical heritage" and represent our civilization) that show us a human culture or civilization that has survived without the ability to make war. The only peaceful culture that has survived to our time and is within our historical records was Tibet which was taken over by China and now the formerly peaceful nation's spiritual leader is busy roaming the plant till he dies. So lets not think of humans as peaceful but rather as a warlike race where the strongest survive. IN this scenario, America's Constitution is not only unique, it represents just a tiny slice of our history and, from a civilization standpoint, can be treated more as an anomaly than the trend of human civilizations. That is how war partys, like the modern GOP, can survive despite the Constitutional abomination that they have become.

Anyways, back to guns. All our history shows that without guns we would not exist as we are today. Whenever we have a culture with bigger guns it has, historically, conquered it neighbors (thus the concept of 'balance of power' in politics is an ancient one that works for human civilizations). To do that now, would be unconstitutional because the territories are established on paper (the excuse to take the Indians land was that it wasn't "owned" in the traditional way as Europeans "owned" things and people) and given the concept of civil rights (first 10 amendments), it would be illegal to make war on anyone unless attacked (& let me add, with proof. Attacking someone just because someone says we should is madness). Besides that, we need guns to assert our superiority and that is how we maintain the peace as well;

OK. The following posts are analysis I did a while back looking at the crazy gun debate, which like most discussions in America, seem to start still born.

For example; Notice how many people will cite how a great number of guns lead to greater deaths compared to countries with no guns but they don't use the same comparison with places like Iceland or Sweden who have guns and are properly trained to use them (Switzerland citizens are an actual militia). In statistics 101 I was taught that one data point connecting with another data point was JUST a correlation. It didn't indicate proof. That's not how the gun discussion has been "progressing" for the last several years. When I saw the nonsense that was going on I just stopped participating in it.Here are my previous writings on the matter;The Concept Of "Gun Free Zones" Analyzed

The argument for gun free zones is simple. I don't like guns, so I don't want them in my "safe space". The chances of a burglary is 1 in a 1000 so why risk guns? This works in 999 of the cases where the burglar doesn't show up but in the one case where he does he can steal whatever he wants. If you give him an assault rifle and he wants to kill then he can kill as many as he wants. Like Germany's invasion of France. They walked right in and took over. That's what EVERY shooter has done. They walked into their area and took control of the situation by shooting for as long as they liked in their chosen area which often happened to be a gun free zone.

The reason why this image has "liberal fantasy" on it is cause "conservatives" hate Liberals. The logic still holds though. Just seeing a sign saying no guns will NEVER stop a criminal from committing a crime.

On Gun Free Zones: Lunatics have free reign in gun free zones. If good citizens can carry weapons as well (since, obviously, only good citizens will obey 'gun free zone' laws and a bad guy/kill will NOT obey a sign saying "No Guns", there will greater public safety (with proper training, of course).

People will STILL die. When a murderer chooses to kill people die. that's what happens on Planet Earth. Death is horrible but you can't freak out every-time the media plays one of the thousands of gun killings that happens every year in America.

Also, to make people safer the better path is one of education and training (such as training in NLP lie detection) so you can notice lies and deception and when a person starts... BEFORE it gets to a point where a killing happens.

CASE STUDY

Sweden has one of the lowest accident rate for guns and the highest gun ownership rate as well. To cite problems with laws is one thing, to say it's not possible or bad is another (given the right circumstances).

Notice how MANY factors COMBINE together to make proper gun use possible. It will be different in implementation in the US but certain salient features will remain the same, i.e. the links & notes in {brackets} in the following article are mine:

Iceland is awash in guns, yet it has one of the lowest violent crime rates in the world. US law student Andrew Clark asks why.Frankly, there is no perfect answer as to why Iceland has one of the lowest violent crime rates in the world.{One part left out of the analysis was Ice Lands border problem, i.e. given that it's an island it doesn't have one. So the community will be more unified such as England or Japan - Ireland seems to have had outsider... shall we say, interference?}According to the 2011 Global Study on Homicide by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Iceland's homicide rate between 1999-2009 never went above 1.8 per 100,000 population on any given year.

On the other hand, the US had homicide rates between 5.0 and 5.8 per 100,000 population during that same stretch.After visits with professors, government officials, lawyers, journalists and citizens, the pie-chart breakdown became clear - though admittedly, it is impossible to determine how much each factor contributes.First - and arguably foremost - there is virtually no difference among upper, middle and lower classes in Iceland. And with that, tension between economic classes is non-existent, a rare occurrence for any country.

Crimes in Iceland - when they occur - usually do not involve firearms, though Icelanders own plenty of guns.GunPolicy.org estimates there are approximately 90,000 guns in the country - in a country with just over 300,000 people.The country ranks 15th in the world in terms of legal per capita gun ownership. However, acquiring a gun is not an easy process -steps to gun ownership include a medical examination and a written test

Police are unarmed, too. The only officers permitted to carry firearms are on a special force called the Viking Squad, and they are seldom called out.In addition, there are, comparatively speaking, few hard drugs in Iceland.According to a 2012 UNODC report, use among 15-64-year-olds in Iceland of cocaine was 0.9%, of ecstasy 0.5%, and of amphetamines 0.7%.There is also a tradition in Iceland of pre-empting crime issues before they arise, or stopping issues at the nascent stages before they can get worse.Right now, police are cracking down on organised crime while members of the Icelandic parliament, Althingi, are considering laws that will aid in dismantling these networks.When drugs seemed to be a burgeoning issue in the country, the parliament established a separate drug police and drug court. That was in 1973.Many people from Iceland, such as these marksmen, use firearms - yet gun crime is rareIn the first 10 years of the court, roughly 90% of all cases were settled with a fine.There's an inimitable make-up of Iceland which, ostensibly and ideally, could provide guidelines for people in other nations who are looking for solutions to their crime issues.As I climbed into the back of that man's Jeep that morning, he smiled and asked if I needed help with my luggage. And even though I knew nothing about him, I felt safe.

UNTIL PROPER STATE MILITIAS &/OR CORRESPONDING TRAINING'S ARE IN PLACE... THE US CAN'T COMPARE ITSELF TO THE HIGHLY TRAINED AND EFFICIENT SWISS OR THE ICE LANDERIANS. THE NEXT SECTION GOES INTO MILITIAS.

SECOND AMENDMENT

The hunting argument arose because people were trying to find a rationale (any rationale) to remove assault rifles to save some kids in a school that represent less than .o1% of gun deaths in the US. The horror at the media replays of that one incident so scarred American consciousness that they lost the ability to think. Or so it seems looking back at the events in hindsight.Unfortunately, since Piers Morgan is the voice of the left I have to incorporate all of his followers studies into a proper perspective for the Second Amendment in our "modern" 21st Century Context2nd Amendment in full: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Citizens, properly trained, and well armed make a safer nation. I think every citizen (as per the second amendment) has the right to carry arms as long as they train themselves well. There should be help provided in each state to get properly trained in the use of firearms as well.

When the constitution was written people lived with guns to hunt and defend themselves so they were extremely well trained... you could say that their weapons had become 'a part of them'. This is the benchmark to know when a person is properly trained.

Rule of law and accountability is also important. With the lack of reliability of eyewitness testimony (which has also been written into law by the Supreme Court), cameras in public places (and removal of all gun free zones), is also an important part of regional or national security (Which the GOP understandably doesn't want)

Question: Why is there such animosity towards guns?

1. Because death with a gun is quick or instant

2. A bow and arrow requires effort to pull back the arrow on the string. A throwing knife or a dart requires using your arm. A gun, on the other hand, could go off with a touch. With careful gun training and safety laws that are properly enforced you will end up with more gun related accidents.

The solution here is one of training and removing gun free zones OR removing guns from the planet, at present there is no other solution to death by a gun. Same applies for death my knives or rocks. And this is not an extreme view because people kill people USING guns. Its not the guns themselves that are responsible. Unfortunately, fear of guns, caused by accidents and a general softness towards the acceptance of death as a part of life has had the strange effect of people blaming a tool for the work of individuals(I think it's the loud noise which people are naturally scared of followed by the quick death. If a knife is used people say well knives always existed to so ban em? Same applies for ANY tool but many gun owners - rather a large minority - seem to treat their guns like playthings. Giving them to kids. However, hunting hasn't been banned, so people can get guns for that. Mad men may act angry (like many people on all sides of the political spectrum) or they may not. Most people don't have the psychological skill to predict a massacre by lone mad men no matter how much we would like to believe that. that's why we are constantly being surprised by acts of violence as the standard human response is to think that, "this couldn't happen here" or "I can't believe someone like him was behind the massacre, looks so 'normal'" or "I can't believe it was someone from "this" community (whatever that community may be).

An image of the State VS Individual in a militia sense which is too narrow given the spirit the Constitution was written in.

For State Militias I like the following guidelines (the only difference being I think people should graduate to high gun levels rather than being able to buy any gun from the start - Regulated WITHIN the State but first the National Guard would have to be returned to State Control):

Extract from an Oklahoman Militia Page: The purpose of any lawful Constitutional militia is to insure the continuity of the United States Constitution as well as the State of Oklahoma Constitution from tyranny or abuse of powers. Militia's duties include education of civic rights, disaster assistance and mitigation,communications and relief to the fullest extent of its volunteers. All Constitutional Militias are manned with volunteers, This even includes you RIGHT now according to Oklahoma Title 44 §4441 Composition of Militia Classes. The Unorganized Militia receive no pay,no insurance and usually provide relief to their neighbors at their own expenses. Local Militia groups may be comprised of citizens without any formal military training, law enforcement or public service history. It is not a requirement that you own a firearm or any equipment however it is highly advised as we advocate the use of deterrents for your own protection and sustainability for at least 72 hours. It is the goal of a militia to protect our neighbors, provide relief education and help our neighbors rebuild. If you are Interested in joining a Militia group we urge you to be proactive and insure that you are not joining a hate group or anarchist group that may call themselves a militia.

Some things that you should be aware of when seeking to join a local militia or survival group.1. Are they Constitutional and lawful: meaning do they follow the constitution and local legislature as well rejecthate, discrimination, or other immoral acts.2. Does the group your interested in advocate attacks or make plans to offensively harm, harass,intimidate or other wise cause malice to any race,creed, religion,sex, or sexual orientation?3.Does the group advocate attacks or make plans to offensively harm, harass,intimidate or other wise cause malice to any form of government officials, offices,or persons.4. Does the group train more for more "tactical" situation as the main focus of activity rather than relief or community action.5. Have they ever discussed,made, or simulated making explosive? If so you should not continue association and should report them to the authorities immediately.6. ANY form of discrimination should be considered a red flag for you.7. Legitimate Militia's or survival groups will focus training on sustainability, self defense, education of your rights and duties as a citizen.

What do we mean by sustainability? 72 hours is a starting place to be self reliant, but what about after 72 hours. Examples would be Katrina, and the East Coast Hurricane Sandy. Many people Died because of a failed Federal and State response to disasters. People Died from the storm, disease, Illness, Violent crimes(due to being disarmed by the local municipalities),and lack of adequate medical,food and water preparations. We teach every member how to live off the land and re purpose debris. We teach how to properly store medications, food, water and clothing. We help develop family plans to re-establish communication with loved ones outside of the affected area. Remember once you become a refugee you loose your ability to be self sufficient and now you are waiting on help which could as it has proven itself in the past to be fatal.(the dome at Katrina and Fema facilities in the wake of Sandy). So why risk the lives of you family or friends when you can be prepared now and not need hand outs or be waiting for clean water. Why expose yourself or your family to desperate dangerous people post disaster and risk loosing so much.

Yes the militia's duty is to respond when asked by the governor of the state, however until then we must protect ourselves and insure our safety until the States Emergency management or Federal relief arrives and request our man power to help facilitate relief. We do not self dispatch to disaster. We will assist our neighbors within our local communities however not on an regional response until requested by authorities.

That musket that man is carrying was the assault rifle of his age... and he didn't have warships and didn't beat the British with warships so the assault rifle analogy stands. Maybe we should be talking about escalation (cops with tanks), education and drugs as the main causes of gun violence instead? i.e. kids on Ritalin as an educational strategy. VIDEO:Psychiatrists On Psychiatry.

Analysis of the "Gun Debate:Christiane Amanpour: After a heated discussion on gun control on our program, both my guests reached a point of agreement; that a larger debate on the Second Amendment must continue. This would seem fitting, given a Pew poll shows Americans are practically evenly split over gun control: 45% in favor, while 49% are against.One of the aspects of this debate I find exceptionally important is that while some blame the culture in America, in Europe they watch the same movies. Yet, they have hade many fewer mass shootings. And after each one of these attacks they have implemented and legislated change and a tightening up of gun laws, which has worked and cut down the violence significantly.One of the guests in our debate tonight, Alan Korwin insists we should all be armed – you can watch his perspective, and the fascinating conversation we had, in the video above.My view on above discussion: The guy with the beard is right. There is no point regulating or banning any gun when there are gun free zones. But IF gun free zones are removed, then sure go ahead and begin the discussion to ban the machine gun for civilian use (MINUS STATE ENDORSED MILITIAS - Also, the National Guard should be returned to the Individual States. It doesn't make sense to make them Federal. State endorsed militia means it's part of A STATE not the Federal Government AS A STATE). As it is escalation has reached a point where the cops have tanks! BTW, that other guy, I bet I could scare him by going "BOO"... you want such a person making decisions about guns when he's obviously scared of everything or just death.

Then the progress in the discussion on guns seemed to just end!

Going through the gun debate articles I was getting a headache until I realized that the key to understanding the random consistency in left magazine articles about guns is Piers Morgan. Apparently Piers Morgan has 3.5 Million followers who love him and will accept some quite alien ideas (to American Culture) if he says them with certainty at an emotionally vulnerable time. The following is a screen shot I took of Piers Morgan's followers with some words below as an introduction to the Piers Morgan side of the gun debate, before I continue with my explanations, "Piers Morgan's Side Of The Gun Debate" is pretty much what it is.

Notice how many people have died since Newtown:

How Many People Have Been Killed by Guns Since Newtown? Slate partners with @GunDeaths for an interactive, crowdsourced tally of the toll firearms have taken since Dec. 14.By Chris Kirk and Dan KoisUpdate, June 19, 2013: As time goes on, our count gets further and further away from the likely actual number of gun deaths in America—because roughly 60 percent of deaths by gun are due to suicides, which are very rarely reported. When discussing this issue, please note that our number is by design not accurate and represents only the number of gun deaths that the media can find out about contemporaneously. Part of the purpose of this interactive is to point out how difficult it is to get accurate real-time numbers on this issue.

Using the most recent CDC estimates for yearly deaths by guns in the United States, it is likely that as of today, 6/28/2013, roughly 16,486 people have died from guns in the United States since the Newtown shootings. Compare that number to the number of deaths reported in the news in our interactive below, and you can see how undertold the story of gun violence in America actually is.

A Quick Look At Piers Morgan:

Piers Morgan's only solution is dictated by his belief in the Statistic that more guns lead to more deaths. In a sense that is true. When guns were first invented did we think that they would kill hundreds of thousands in World Wars while shooting hundreds of bullets a second in distant firing lines with bombs ("shock and awe") leveling whole towns & blasting everyone to such tiny pieces their bodies can't be found? Or consider how US society is being relentlessly hammered to it's breaking point.

How could such reckless rhetoric (used almost daily) not lead to various sorts of problems &/or disasters? What if Piers Morgan made a mistake and because of the emotions of the moment his 3.5 million followers all found themselves agreeing with him when even in his case it was probably an emotional over-reaction in an alien culture that he simply can't fathom.

What Piers Morgan states as his belief on guns tends to become the beliefs of all of his followers - which apparently is the whole left! - Why is he completely indifferent to the distribution of guns? If Hitler's Germany had less guns with the rest of the world having more guns would this distribution of guns have led to a more stable mid-twentieth century? i.e. if the guns were distributed differently back then could World War 2 have been avoided?

Since Piers Morgan is just a TV Show host, following his hierarchy of orders (probably from old guys such as Donald Trump - guy who got him his CNN job through his TV Show - or Rupert Murdoch - ex-boss & Trump friend), it's understandable that he is not familiar with basic Statistics. It's not something his experience as an editor of a tabloid would lead him to. So here is a little primer about Statistics in dealing with serious matters:

Extract from the basics of Econometrics:Not only will you learn the meaning and usefulness of the correlation coefficient, but, just as important, we will stress that there are times when the correlation coefficient is a poor summary and should not be used. There is no such thing as a perfect summary measure of data. In addition, we emphasize that correlation merely indicates the level of linear association between two variables and should never be used to infer causation. It is tempting to suppose that a high correlation implies some kind of causal connection, but this is wrong. - Although much of this material may be familiar to students of statistics, we conclude the chapter with a discussion of ecological correlation, which is often omitted from introductory statistics courses. We show that the correlation coefficient based on individual level data may be markedly different when computed with grouped data. In economics, this is called the aggregation problem, and it merits attention.

Basically if there is a correlation between two variables it is just a correlation and doesn't assume ANY sort of cause and effect relationship... or put another way, if two figures seem to be related it is just that, i.e. a relationship that SEEMS to be there. There is no evidence that one leads to the other until you actually have evidence. For example: If you have ever played catch with the waves of an ocean it sometimes feels as if the Ocean is responding to you and trying to get you wet, especially when you yell at it for a bit. That is a correlation... as the ocean seems to be responding to you. It doesn't prove cause and effect in ANY way. Get it?

That said, emotions can cloud the mind. So what may seem reasonable when under emotional strain or trauma is not so rational later when you are calmer or simply hardened.

Piers Morgan has a suspicious background & may be categorized as a lefty version of Fox News;

Now consider this argument(with the links embeded in the paragraph):Piers Morgan turned the gun debate into a charade i.e. calling people stupid rather than having discussions as the BBC anchor points out at 30 seconds ... i.e. what Piers Morgan was doing was to use the emotionally charged situation surrounding Sandy Hook to push his own agenda through a process called "Anchoring"(NLP). Something which Fox News are very good at, and Piers Morgan's connection to Rupert Murdoch through The Daily Mirror & News Of The World - where Rupert Murdoch's paper close family friends were caught hacking thousands of people - is established so he must have known what he was doing;

REVIEW OF GUN LAWS & RESEARCH ON GUNS

This is a perfect example of a Piers Morgan based researcher. The researcher took one variable and found a correlation with another variable. Everything else was ignored. As is necessary in economic models when you hold everything constant except the twp variable being studied... only in the real world (where guns are used) you can't hold all other variables constant which is why in Statistics such graphs are called correlations and assuming they represent cause and effect tends to be discouraged by every Statistician I heard of while studying economics in the 1990's. Apparently Statistics isn't what it used to be.

Extract from the basics of Econometrics:Not only will you learn the meaning and usefulness of the correlation coefficient, but, just as important, we will stress that there are times when the correlation coefficient is a poor summary and should not be used. There is no such thing as a perfect summary measure of data. In addition, we emphasize that correlation merely indicates the level of linear association between two variables and should never be used to infer causation. It is tempting to suppose that a high correlation implies some kind of causal connection, but this is wrong. - Although much of this material may be familiar to students of statistics, we conclude the chapter with a discussion of ecological correlation, which is often omitted from introductory statistics courses. We show that the correlation coefficient based on individual level data may be markedly different when computed with grouped data. In economics, this is called the aggregation problem, and it merits attention.

Lesson: When people are properly trained they can get to a shooter. Problem of having no one around (gun free zone?) remains as the shooter shot till he ran out of bullets and thus had complete control oh his situation TILL he ran out of bullets. Same applies to the next example so I'm skipping it.

High school shooting in Pearl, MississippiAnother case, from 1997, in which the shooting was apparently already over: After killing two and wounding seven inside Pearl High School, the 16-year-old perpetrator left the building and went outside near the parking lot. The assistant principal—who was also a member of the Army Reserve--ran out to his own vehicle, grabbed a handgun he kept there, and then approached the shooter, subduing him at gunpoint until authorities arrived.

Lesson: If the Assistant Principal had the gun with him he wouldn't have to run outside. If the shooter had an assault weapon (which everyone seems to admit CANT be eliminated from the street) then he would have killed many and probably run out of bullets before the guy could get back from the parking lot. Have you seen the size of the parking lots in the States and compared it to the speed of fire of a handgun much less an assault rifle?

New Life Church shooting in Colorado Springs, ColoradoIn 2007 a gunman killed two people and wounded three others before being shot himself; the pro-gun crowd likes to refer to the woman who took him out in the parking lot as a "church member." Never mind that she was a security officer for the church and a former cop, and that the church had put its security team on high alert earlier that day due to another church shooting nearby.

Lesson: Having trained (ex)militia members - in this case a former cop - on security and in your church is a good idea.

Bar shooting in Winnemucca, NevadaIn 2008, a gunman who killed two and wounded two others was taken out by another patron in the bar, who was carrying with a valid permit. But this was no regular Joe with a concealed handgun: The man who intervened, who was not charged after authorities determined he'd committed a justifiable homicide, was a US Marine.

Lesson: A highly trained militia member, such as a local State Guard, would be great to have around. Training more people would make the area even more safer!

Shopping mall shooting in Tacoma, WashingtonAs a rampage unfolded in 2005, a civilian with a concealed-carry permit named Brendan McKown confronted the assailant with his handgun. The shooter pumped several bullets into McKown, wounding six people before eventually surrendering to police after a hostage standoff. A comatose McKown eventually recovered after weeks in the hospital.

Lesson: When someone is shooting people and you have a gun. Draw and and shoot immediately. Aim for the center of the body. If you brandish your weapon expecting a crazy murderer to stop... you definitely need more training.

Data shows the gun lobby's chief argument for more firearms in schools, malls, and beyond is just plain wrong.

Ever since the massacres in Aurora, Colorado, and Newtown, Connecticut, it's been repeated like some surreal requiem: The reason mass gun violence keeps happening is because the United States is full of places that ban guns.The NRA does say stuff inappropriately, as does Fox News & The GOP. I think they do it intentionally to cause conflict. Probably for some sort of marketing.Second Amendment activists have long floated this theme, and now lawmakers acrossthenation are using it too. During a recent floor debate in the Colorado Legislature, Republican state Rep. Carole Murray put it this way: "Most of the mass killings that we talk about have been effected in gun-free zones. So when you have a gun-free zone, it's like saying, 'Come and get me.'"

The argument claims to explain both the motive behind mass shootings and how they play out. The killers deliberately choose sites where firearms are forbidden, gun-rights advocates say, and because there are no weapons, no "good guy with a gun" will be on hand to stop the crime.

With its overtones of fear and heroism, the argument makes for slick sound bites. But here's the problem: Both its underlying assumptions are contradicted by data. Not only is there zero evidence to support them, our in-depth investigation of America's mass shootings indicates they are just plain wrong.Some choose sites where guns are forbidden. Some happen to have problems with people in areas where guns are forbidden. In either case the result is the same. A person keeps shooting till they run out of bullets. I'm the kind of guy who would rather have a teacher defending kids with bullets than with her body. At least with a gun the teacher and kids have a fighting chance. You can't turn back the clock and go to a time when guns never existed... but you can move forward and make the US a safer place if you can let go of some media induced pre-conceptions about guns.Or consider the 12 school shootings we documented, in which all but one of the killers had personal ties to the school they struck. FBI investigators learned from one witness, for example, that the mass shooter in Newtown had long been fixated on Sandy Hook Elementary School, which he'd once attended.

A gun-free zone inhabitant has problems. See drugs and psychiatry above.Proponents of this argument also ignore that the majority of mass shootings are murder-suicides. Thirty-six of the killers we studied took their own lives at or near the crime scene, while seven others died in police shootouts they had no hope of surviving (a.k.a. "suicide by cop"). These were not people whose priority was identifying the safest place to attack.

See mental health links above.

No less a fantasy is the idea that gun-free zones prevent armed civilians from saving the day. Not one of the 62 mass shootings we documented was stopped this way. Veteran FBI, ATF, and police officials say that an armed citizen opening fire against an attacker in a panic-stricken movie theater or shopping mall is very likely to make matters worse. Law enforcement agents train rigorously for stopping active shooters, they say, a task that requires extraordinary skills honed under acute duress. In cases in Washington and Texas in 2005, would-be heroes who tried to take action with licensed firearms were gravely wounded and killed. In the Tucson mass shooting in 2011, an armed citizen admitted to coming within a split second of gunning down the wrong person—one of the bystanders who'd helped tackle and subdue the actual killer.The alternatives: 1. Letting the shooter run out of bullets - OR - 2. More training.

True security in our schools and other designated gun-free places may require more. Forbidding firearms alone clearly won't keep violence away—not least because of how easily bad guys can get their hands on guns. Nearly 80 percent of the mass shooters we documented obtained their weapons legally.That means nothing. The US registers it's cars but not it's guns and then the gun rights advocates have the kahones to compare guns to cars without a trace of shame. Conservative hate liberals so much they will destroy themselves to destroy the Liberals. Sorry but that's a fact.*Guns were in fact legal at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, contrary to a false report from Fox News. Wisconsin state law allows firearms to be carried in houses of worship unless explicitly barred on the premises; Amardeep Kaleka, whose father founded the temple and was killed during the attack, confirmed to me that there was no such ban in place then.Correct. Guns weren't banned from the area but also no one owned a gun and there was no security guard as in the Mother Jones article examples above. How does this help your case?The problem with gun rights advocates today is that they are willing to sacrifice the whole Constitution for the second amendment. Or at least the Bill of Rights. You can see this by conservative support of NSA & Patriot Act phone tapping and record collecting & the 5th Amendment (besides others). {Full Bill Of Rights Listed below for Gun Rights People}

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment 2

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment 3

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment 4

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment 5

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment 6

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Amendment 7

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

STRANGE:America has long been heavily armed relative to other societies, and our arsenal keeps growing. A precise count isn't possible because most guns in the United States aren't registered and the government has scant ability to track them, thanks to a legislative landscape shaped by powerful pro-gun groups such as the National Rifle Association. But through a combination of national surveys and manufacturing and sales data, we know that the increase in firearms has far outpaced population growth. In 1995 there were an estimated 200 million guns in private hands. Today, there are around 300 million—about a 50 percent jump. The US population, now over 314 million, grew by about 20 percent in that period. At this rate, there will be a gun for every man, woman, and child before the decade ends.

ON the one hand the argument is the same as the correlation argument above or the one Piers Morgan uses, i.e. ...

On the other hand the answer to this is a couple of paragraphs below:Surveys suggest America's guns may be concentrated in fewer hands today: Approximately 40 percent of households had them in the past decade, versus about 50 percent in the 1980s.

In other words, there are more guns but in fewer hands. Which means that the distribution of guns is skewed {i.e. More Guns = More Deaths is just as dumb as More Guns = More Safety - Both are arguments revolving around a dumbed down statistic ... that means the debate is based on a correlation & emotion NOT cause effect.} Some people collect guns while others collect knives & swords and still others both. The following is an example of a typical gun collection:

One man owning a bunch of guns if divided amougnst people in the entire house would yield a meaningless statistic of, say, 3.2 guns per person. It's like someone took one GDP or stock market analysis formula (forgetting that you have to use several formulas for any accuracy)... and applied it to a whole debate!

Quotes

"Make peace with the universe. Take joy in it. It will turn to gold. Resurrection will be now. Every moment, a new beauty." - Rumi

"God is a metaphor for that which transcends all levels of intellectual thought. It's as simple as that." - Joseph Campbell

"Naturally, every age thinks that all ages before it were prejudiced, and today we think this more than ever and are just as wrong as all previous ages that thought so. How often have we not seen the truth condemned! It is sad but unfortunately true that man learns nothing from history." - Carl Jung

"Of all the animosities which have existed among mankind, those which are caused by difference of sentiments in religion appear to be the most inveterate and distressing, and ought most to be deprecated. I was in hopes that the enlightened and liberal policy, which has marked the present age, would at least have reconciled Christians of every denomination so far that we should never again see the religious disputes carried to such a pitch as to endanger the peace of society." - George Washington

“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.” - Dalai Lama

“Be empty of worrying. Think of who created thought! Why do you stay in prison. When the door is so wide open?” ― Rumi